


Try, Try, Try Again

by anticyclone



Category: The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: Blow Jobs, F/M, Jealousy, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mind Control, Minor Injuries, Mugging, Office Sex, Possessive Behavior, SmutSwap treat, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-10-20 17:27:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10667376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticyclone/pseuds/anticyclone
Summary: Joan gets mugged. Damien interrupts. Interrupting is kind of his thing.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [radioqueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/radioqueen/gifts).



> I took some liberties with the timeline. I hope you like it!

Joan handed over her wallet with perhaps more force than necessary - it made a  _ thwack  _ sound as she slapped it into the stranger's hand. He thumbed the wallet open to double-check the contents, and with his other hand, kept the knife at Joan's throat.

The mugger had caught her coming out of work and yanked her down the alley until they were somewhat obscured by oversized recycling bins. One of her heels had snapped, so she was lopsided on her feet. Then the knife had come out. Her pulse was racing so hard that she felt like she was coming out of her skin. Every other breath she was convinced the knife wasn't actually touching her. But it wasn't something to bank on. Calm. All she had to do was stay calm.

"There's forty-eight dollars cash and two credit cards. The PIN for my ATM card is 4320."

The guy tucked her wallet into his coat and gestured at her purse. "Cell phone and keys."

"Do you just want to take the whole bag?" she asked, somewhat taken aback by how irritated she sounded. The only thing that mattered was giving the man what he wanted and getting out. Mouthing off was not going to help.

He snorted. "Yeah, that's not conspicuous." The knife definitely nicked her skin then. She clenched her jaw and held her breath. "Cell phone and keys."

It was hard to fish them both out without lowering her head to look into her purse - her keys had fallen out of the front pocket, and she had to dig around to find them. She palmed them with her cell phone and held them out. The guy took the cell first, putting it into his coat along with her wallet. He scooped up the keys with one finger and dangled them in front of her.

In the corner of her eye, the mouth of the alleyway darkened, but Joan didn't turn her head. The knife scraped against her throat and she had spit welling up in her mouth that she couldn't swallow without the blade pressing in again. Her fingers were starting to get cold.

"I've got your ID, so I know where you live. I saw you come out, so I know where you work. You better not say anything to anybody about this." Then he flashed a smile that was so unbearably smarmy she had to resist rolling her eyes. "You can cancel the cards in 48 hours, how 'bout that?"

"How 'bout you give the nice lady her things back?"

In a blink, the mugger's face went blank. He lowered the knife and Joan's hand immediately flew up to her neck - there was some slick blood there, but the cut was obviously shallow, and no reason for further panic. The mugger dropped her keys at their feet and mechanically drew out her wallet, letting it fall too.

When he was about to drop the cell phone, Damien clicked his tongue against his teeth. "Whoa, whoa, we don't want to break that, do we? Hand it back," he said, finally taking the last steps to close the distance between them and the end of the alley. Joan still didn't turn her head.

It was a very strange sensation to have the mugger gingerly hand her cell phone back to her.

"Aren't things better when we're all getting along?" Damien said. He stepped into Joan's field of vision. There was a wide slash of a smile on his face. If she could have moved backwards through the wall, she would have.

"That's probably enough, Damien." Her heartbeat wasn't coming down. She started counting her breaths. The irritation was surging again, although she knew that was unfair. She just didn't want to have to - ugh. She was going to have to  _ thank him. _

"You know, it's so weird," he said, turning to her. He stared at her hand on her neck for a moment before tilting his head to one side. "First, I find you chatting up some random guy behind your office - which, I gotta say, is a deeply unhygienic break area -  and then he trips and falls on his own knife."

It took a split second, but she blurted  _ "Damien!"  _ and managed to catch the mugger's wrist with both hands before he'd actually stabbed himself. It was beyond her strength to stop him from trying, though. She leaned her weight back unevenly on her heels and glared at Damien through the hair falling in her face. "Damien, that's  _ enough." _

He gave her a very dark look, but shrugged as soon as the mugger reached over to push her away with his free hand. "If you say so, Dr. B."

The mugger dropped the knife and turned to run out of the alley so fast he knocked over one of the recycling bins on his way out.

Joan let her purse fall off her shoulder and bent over, pressing her hands to her knees. Box breath: four counts in, four counts hold, four counts out, four counts hold. She flinched when Damien's fingers brushed her throat.  _ "Don't  _ touch me."

"Ungrateful," he muttered.

He stuck his hands in the front pocket of his hoodie and glowered at her. She fished a hair tie out of her purse and twisted her hair into a bun on the back of her head. She had to look slightly less like she'd just been - whatever the hell had just happened. The broken heel and the still-bleeding cut on her neck were going to be hard enough to disguise on the walk back to the car. It was unseasonably warm today, too, so she didn't even have a scarf to cover it up.

When she turned to face him, Damien took a purposeful step toward her and touched her neck again. She opened her mouth to snap at him but found herself saying, "Thank you, Damien, for saving my life from that evil, evil man," which made her flush red in embarrassment as much as anger.

"You're so welcome." Damien grinned up at her without raising his eyes while he dragged his sleeve over her injury. "You know, we really should be on a first name basis by now."

"Of course you can call me Joan," she said, flinching when the frayed cuff of his hoodie's sleeve brushed the cut.

He looked down at her purse. "Do you have a handkerchief or something?"

"A  _ handkerchief?"  _ But she was handing him the travel tissue pack she always carried.

"I know it's shocking, but I don't actually spend all my time going through women's purses. I don't know what you have in there." He ripped a tissue out and wadded it up to press against her cut.

A few moments ticked by without anything else happening, and Joan reluctantly let her fists unclench. The only sounds she could hear were cars driving by and Damien breathing. The alley was empty and still… and her palms were clammy. It was still hard to keep her breath even, and her ankle was starting to hurt. Hopefully she hadn't twisted it when she'd broken the hell. And damn it, she'd liked these shoes. She didn't even remember where she'd bought them.

Damien had his eyes trained on her neck. He didn't look up when she took the tissue from him to hold it in place. It did feel like there wasn't any more blood dribbling down, though. "You shouldn't have done that," she said.

"Shouldn't have saved your life?" he asked, incredulously. He did meet her eyes then.

She felt the press of his ability against her temples but shook it off. He wasn't trying that hard. "Shouldn't have tried to force that man to injure himself. That was beyond the pale, Damien. He wasn't going to hurt me."

His face flushed and he took a step forward, forcing her to lean back against the wall again. "Maybe we were seeing different things."

"I had it under control."

"Then we have different definitions of  _ control." _

"I thought that was a given."

He tried to step forward again, but stopped when she brought her hand up and pressed it flat against his chest. His lips thinned into a slanted line. Again, she felt his ability tugging at her. "I'm going to go home now. It's been a very long day, my shoe is broken, and I need to eat," she said, as firmly as possible. She bit her lower lip and then shook herself. "Stop it."

"What?" he asked, voice quiet. "It's not my fault if you're thinking about kissing somebody just for rescuing you."

"Damien." It was supposed to be a warning, but she was biting her lip again. Damien was staring at her mouth and her fingers had curled up so she was holding the fabric of his shirt. He glanced up at her, and she clenched her jaw, struggling to glare at him instead of just stare at his mouth in return.

He exhaled, then took a few steps away, giving her back more than an arm's length of personal space. He didn't move again until she was walking out of the alley. She held her chin up and concentrated on limping as little as possible for the few blocks left to the spot she'd parked today. It wasn't until she crossed the first street that she realized Damien was trailing on behind her. When she glared at him, he glared back and picked up the pace so he was walking beside her.

He pulled the car door open for her when she pressed the button to unlock it. Instead of circling around to the passenger's side, which she had unfortunately experienced a couple of times now, he took a step back onto the curb.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

Before she started the engine she forced herself to take a deep breath and roll down her window. Damien raised one eyebrow at her.

"I  _ was  _ going to say thank you, before you forced me to," she told him. An annoying flash of satisfaction went over his face. "Maybe you should think more about letting people speak for themselves instead of always putting words in their mouths."

He winked and drawled at her, "That's not what I'm interested in putting in your mouth."

She groaned, rolled the window back up, then got into the street as fast as possible.

***

It was about a week later when she was again leaving her office in the dark. This time she drew her keys out before she left the building and slotted them between her fingers - something Chloe had recommended in alarm when she'd seen the puckered cut on Joan's throat and immediately known everything that had happened. Joan had tried meditating, she had tried focusing her thoughts on anything and everything else, but apparently this had been too big to shield.

Reflexively, she glanced down the alley before stepping in front of it. "Damien?"

He stepped out onto the sidewalk. Both his hands were in his pockets. "I hear it's dangerous to walk to your car by yourself in the dark."

It would have been dangerous for him, too, if she'd decided to carry pepper spray like Chloe had tried to insist on when she'd picked up on the fact that he'd been there during the  _ incident. _ Another thing she hadn't been able to block. Joan said, "Yes, I've heard that too."

They started walking in the direction of her car. Joan was trying very hard not to bristle.

"I don't get why you park so far away from your office."

"Because it saves me a hundred dollars in parking fees a month. You don't have to be here if you don't want to do the walking," she pointed out.

"We can walk in the same direction. It's a free country."

She tried and failed not to laugh. It wasn't funny - but with Damien sometimes she had to act like things that weren't funny were, or he got into his head that he should keep doing them. "Have you been making sure I leave work before dark every day this week?"

He looked offended. "I saw your light was on."

"How  _ thoughtful  _ of you, Damien." She dramatically laid the hand holding her keys over her chest, and his eyes narrowed at the way she was holding them. "I never knew you were so soft-hearted."

"Forgive me for thinking you maybe wouldn't want to get attacked by a knife-wielding maniac again," he snapped. His shoulders had gone tense and straight.

Joan stopped next to her car and turned around to face him. "Damien, if you actually cared, you would have called and asked if I was okay. You have my number. You could have shown up at the office and knocked if you really thought I wanted someone to walk me to the car. But you didn't. You still want to do whatever strikes you in the moment and get praised for it."

They were the only people in the parking lot. There were a couple of other cars, but no one was walking by. Damien's eyes skimmed the area behind her and didn't catch on anything.

She leaned forward and poked him in the chest to get his attention. "I  _ am  _ grateful that you helped me. But I'm still angry at you. You have the ability to intervene in situations like that nonviolently, and you  _ chose  _ to hurt that man. He could have ended up seriously injuring himself! That's the difference between someone who's actually trying to help and someone who doesn't care and wants to show off."

"I'll just leave you alone the next time I see you getting robbed, then."

"You're still not listening to me." She rubbed her hand against one temple. "Sometimes I don't know why I even try."

Damien scowled. "Why  _ do  _ you try?"

Her mouth opened without her intervention, but he turned and stalked off before she could answer. In the back of her head, she counted how many steps it took before she couldn't feel his ability pressing against her skin anymore. It was a bigger distance than she could probably run without being caught.


	2. Chapter 2

Joan had left the door to the lobby open, so both of them looked up when the knocking started. Green frowned as Joan got up and walked over to the front door, running through her head who might knock at this time in the evening. Green had run late to start, and then the phone had rung and she'd had to speak to a patient for twenty minutes, and now it was past sunset and they had only just started wrapping up their meeting. Nobody else was scheduled for today. Sarah didn't make it a habit to drop in after-hours. And she had a key. So who… oh.

It wasn't a complete surprise to open the door and see Damien standing there. He grinned at her and seemed startled when she spoke first. "You could not have chosen a _worse time,"_ she hissed.

"Wow, and I even knocked."

"Joan?"

Damien looked over her shoulder. The spark in his eyes did not bode well.

Joan latched onto his sleeve, but it didn't help - Damien slid past her into the lobby. "Agent Green! You know, I don't know why I didn't expect you when Joan wasn't answering my calls."

Green looked as deeply irritated as he ever did: His mouth was creased at the corners. "I'm sorry, I didn't hear any phones ringing. Are you sure that … Oh, were you calling her personal number?"

"Of course. Remember me? I'm Joan's friend. And what are you doing here after dark, Agent Green?"

The smile on his face was deeply unsettling, and it couldn't just be because she was anxious about what either one of them was going to say to each other. It took a second to figure out why, but then Joan connected the grin on his face with the look he'd given the mugger nearly a month ago now. Great. There had to be something she could do to stop this train wreck before it happened. If she thought fast enough.

"We were simply conducting a routine meeting about referring a new patient to Dr. Bright's practice," Green said, apparently unaware that he was saying it. He put his hand on her arm, and behind her, Damien stiffened. "Joan, you said that your schedule was cleared for the rest of the day."

"It was. This is - Damien is just here to-"

"Walk her to her car."

"Walk me to my car," she repeated, and then immediately cursed herself.

Green's frown deepened. "Why would you need someone to walk you to your car?"

"Oh, didn't Joan tell you?" Damien looped an arm around her waist. Joan got an arm around him before he tugged her up against his side, which earned her a surprised look - at least until she punched him in the back. He winced but continued: "She got mugged recently after leaving work at night."

"What? Joan, why didn't you say something?"

She was going to kill both of them. "It wasn't relevant. I'm fine."

"Yes, luckily _I_ was there to intervene."

"Oh." Green looked between them while Joan wished she had claws to dig into Damien's back. "Well. Yes. That is very fortunate."

"It was, wasn't it?"

Joan sighed. "Yes, I'm very grateful not to have been stabbed and left for dead," she said.

Green went pale. "He had a knife?"

"Not for long," Damien said. His voice was chipper.

The expression on Green's face made her stomp, as discreetly as possible, on Damien's toes. He flinched hard enough that he let her go, and she stepped forward, turning Green back toward her office. The trains were about to collide if she didn't separate them. "We really should finish up so you can go."

She saw Green pulling the mantle of _professional_ back on. Thank the universe for that predictability, at least. "I apologize again for running late and cutting into your evening. Yes, let's go wrap things up."

It took just over five minutes, but she managed to give him the last of the updates and get him to the elevator before Damien could say anything more damning than _have a nice night_. As soon as the elevator doors closed, she whirled around and stormed back to the office. At this time of night they were the last ones on the floor, so she felt comfortable slamming the door and making Damien jump up from Sarah's chair. He'd been fiddling with one of her desk toys.

"Are you _insane?_ Do you _want_ the AM to see you as dangerous?"

He sighed and walked out from behind the desk. "I'm not worried about it. Nothing is going to happen."

"Unless you blurt out in front of an agent that you tried to get someone to _violently injure_ themselves." She threw both her hands up. "I don't want them to find out about you, but they could. Your ability would be extremely interesting. And Green will remember this - you were certainly trying to rub his nose in it. He's not stupid, Damien. You don't want to give him dots to connect. If they ever learned that you were willing to have someone try to hurt themselves, even Agent Green would sign off on a squad to come put a bag over your head."

Damien stared at her. "That was an exception."

"Do you think they care about exceptions? It's like you want to be locked up!"

Snorting, Damien sat down on the edge of the desk. In the process he knocked over Sarah's pen holder but didn't make a move to upright it. "Oh, and that would free you up for more late-night meetings with _Agent Green,_ wouldn't it?"

That was maybe the last thing she expected to come out of his mouth. It took her a moment to absorb it, and then she had to put her hand to her temple. "What? Why would you say that? Oh - Oh my God, are you _jealous?"_

Damien blinked. He laughed and crossed his arms over his chest. "Why would I be jealous of him?"

This was too much. Joan turned and went to her secret liquor cabinet, ignoring it when Damien laughed again once she came back into the office lobby and he realized what she had brought with her. She pointedly poured out just one glass and set the bottle down on an end table. Damien came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders when she downed it in a single swallow. "Mind if I…?"

He took the drink she poured for him and sipped appreciatively. "This is good stuff."

"I bought it to help put up with you."

He smirked and made a _tsk, tsk_ sound. "Are you sure you don't keep it for _routine_ late-night meetings?" he asked, taking another long sip.

She wanted to take her next drink straight from the bottle, but took the cup from Damien's hand and finished his drink for him instead. He looked irritated but wordlessly accepted the next drink she poured. "I don't understand why you're doing this. Agent Green works for the AM. Our relationship is purely professional."

"That's a load of bull, Dr. B. I may not read minds, but I know you two had a thing at some point," Damien murmured. He emptied his glass and set it down. She realized she was standing with her back to the wall and Damien was between her and the doorway.

"How do you possibly know that?" She knew they'd run into each other once in her office already, but as far as she knew, they hadn't met beyond that. She had the mental image of Damien trailing Green around town and groaned. "Did you stalk him and force him to tell you about us?"

"I didn't need to."

"Could you just-" She shut her eyes. "Could you just tell me? It's been a long day and I don't want to have to pry every single shred of information out of you."

There was a long moment of silence.

"It's the way he looks at you." He tilted his head when she just stared at him, baffled. He put his hand on her arm - in the same place Green had a few minutes ago. "He touches you and you let him. The first time we met, he touched your shoulder, and-"

"This is ridiculous."

"I know what it looks like when a guy looks at a woman like that," Damien pressed on, ignoring her. He slid his hand up along her arm and curled it over her elbow. Her shoulders touched the wall. "He clearly pisses you off, you won't call him by his first name, but you let him touch you. Why, if he's not somebody you've been with before?" His smile was grim.

Joan pulled her elbow out of his grip. It just freed up his hands to settle on the wall on either side of her, but Damien stopped pressing in when she latched onto his shoulders. He went still. He didn't back off.

"My relationship with Agent Green, former or current, is none of your business."

"But you did have one. Former."

She grit her teeth, but he was pressing hard, and she couldn't keep herself from answering. It was like a hot coal under her ribs. "Yes."

"Why? What did you see in him?"

"He was uncomplicated."

Both of Damien's eyebrows shot up and he started laughing. She shut her eyes and count to ten, but when she looked again, he hadn't stopped laughing. "That's - That's cold, Dr. B. So he was like what, your fuck buddy?"

"No. It wasn't completely about sex."

His eyes sparked again. He eased one of his knees between her legs and she swallowed. Her pulse was starting to race. "Care to elaborate?"

It felt like he was physically pulling the words out of her, one by one. "We broke up before he could say anything, and he doesn't know that I know, but I found a ring at his house at one point."

He looked startled and suddenly grabbed both her wrists too tightly. "Would you have said yes?"

"I - No. Why are you asking?"

"Just clarifying. Seems like he has plenty of reasons to want me locked up already."

He looked down at her mouth, and she found herself biting her lip. His knee was riding up between her legs, making her skirt inch up along her thighs. There was heat twisting in her stomach and her blouse felt too tight. He gently rocked his thigh over her, which made her breath catch.

"Did you ever fuck him at work?"

"No. And I'm not going to sleep with you at work, either." It was like being splashed with cold water. He let her twist her wrists out of his grip and push him back a few steps, but he was grinning from ear to ear. It was ridiculous how badly she wanted to clock him.

"Would you sleep with me somewhere else? Be honest."

"If you weren't being such an insufferable prick about it!"

It was maybe the first time she'd ever seen him at a loss for words.

Horrified, she hurriedly smoothed her skirt back into place. "You should leave."

"That's a lot different than 'I want you to leave.'"

"Why do you want to stay?"

"Why do you keep _trying_ with me?" he countered. He pulled his hoodie off over his head and she found herself slipping out of her blazer, which left her arms bare, since her blouse just had thin straps at the shoulders. Damien peeled his shirt off, too, but she didn't feel compelled to copy him.

It took her the length of watching him take off his shoes and belt to remember he'd said something similar to her the last time they'd spoken. "I guess as much as you drive me nuts, I don't exactly find you repulsive," she said, her face heating up.

Damien dropped his belt on top of his shoes. "Wow."

"You're not bad-looking," she ground out, which made him snort. She took a deep breath and leaned back against the wall. The compulsion felt like it was growing in her gut, and she struggled with it for a second, but Damien was eyeing her and licking his lips and it surged up beyond her control. "God. Okay, you're hot when you want to be, and when you're not forcing me down a particular conversational path, it _can_ be interesting to talk to you. Also, you have a very nice voice."

He laughed again. "You seem really offended about that. Am I hot now?"

"Yes."

"We're past the _insufferable prick_ thing, right?" he asked. His voice was getting thick. He held his hands at his sides and stared at her.

She looked him up and down and sighed. "Yes, all right. Just - Get over here."

He crossed the room in a couple of steps and pushed her flat against the wall. She wrapped one hand around his head and brought his mouth down to hers. They were nearly an even height now, since she hadn't taken her heels off. Damien ground their hips together and eagerly slid his hands under her ass, pulling her up against him.

She kissed him back and let him work himself half-hard grinding against her before she fumbled behind herself and pulled one of his hands between them, pulling it up the inside of her thigh. He took the hint and tugged the band of her panties down. The black fabric made him whistle and she whacked the back of his head. "Seriously?"

"How attached are you to these?" he asked, his fingers still hooked around the waistband.

"Very."

"Fine, fine." He let go of her long enough to pull her panties down her legs. She had to kick off her shoes to get them off her ankles, though. She leaned her head back as he moved his hand up between her thighs again.

He slid a single finger into her and hissed against her neck. "Jesus, you're already wet and I've barely touched you."

"Do you _ever_ shut up?"

"I don't know. You seem to like it when I talk. I have a nice voice, right?" Damien added another finger and slid them into her up to the base of his hand, working them up against her until she was squirming and had to wrap an arm around him for balance. He nuzzled the strap of her blouse down and kissed at her bare shoulder. "Are you wearing a bra?"

"It's strapless."

"Hot."

This was a bad idea. This was such a bad idea. She kept thinking that right through him spreading his fingers inside her and swirling his thumb over her clit. That made her shudder, and his free hand came down from her hip to curl under her thigh, lifting her leg slightly and opening her up a little further. Her skirt bunched up around her waist. She tried to bury her face against his shoulder, but he caught his mouth with hers and kissed her until it was clear she wasn't going to open her lips for him.

When he pulled back he was breathing hard. "You're seriously letting me finger you but don't want to French?"

"Didn't you tell me recently that you wanted to put something else in my mouth?"

He choked, startled, which was the reaction she'd been going for.

"Back up."

"Let me finish first." He thumbed her clit again.

Groaning, Joan brought her hips up. His other hand tightened around her thigh, his fingers gripping so hard she thought there would be impressions in her skin when he finally let go. He worked a third finger into her and thrust roughly. It was erratic enough that she couldn't keep up with it. There were a couple of moments when she thought she was about to spill over, but Damien would pause or slow down and she couldn't quite make it. He spread his fingers inside her and she latched onto his hair with her free hand.

"Damien, I swear to God," she hissed.

"What's the magic word?"

She yanked his head down so his mouth brushed hers. This was not normally something she would have said, except his eyes were wide and dark and his mouth was smudged with her lipstick. It seemed appropriate, even though it came out a bit of a question: "Good boy?"

He choked again and pulled her to him. She felt herself clench down hard on his fingers. She let him slide his tongue into her mouth so all the embarrassing noises she made as she came, and any other ridiculous things she might have said, were muffled.

As soon as he let go she forced him backwards across the room, until he hit the edge of Sarah's desk. She slid her skirt off and folded it so the floor so she could kneel on it. When she peeled off her blouse and undid the clasp on her bra, he tried to thread both hands through her hair. She shook him off and pinned his hands to the desk. "No grabbing."

"Joan," he said. He started to lift his hands but gripped the edge of the desk instead because she'd kneeled and had started to pull down his zipper.

Damien was already hard. For a split second Joan wasn't entirely sure what she wanted to do next. It had been a while. Then she flicked her eyes up to check Damien's expression. She realized she could probably wrap her mouth around him, hum the Star Spangled Banner, and have a five-star review.

Instead she licked down his shaft and closed her lips over the head of his cock. He sucked in a sharp breath and clutched the edge of the desk so hard his knuckles went pale.

It really had been a while. She felt her throat constricting when she swallowed Damien too deep, and forced herself to lean back slightly. He made small, restrained sounds when she teased the underside of his shaft with her tongue. A minute later, he sounded a little like she was physically reeling the breath from him when she swept her hair out of her face and sucked.

Joan found her hand sliding between her legs, her fingers fumbling for her still-swollen clit. She rubbed herself for a moment before having to jerk back from Damien. She brought her hands up to her hips because it made it easier to stop herself if she gave her hands something else to do other than whatever was running through Damien's head.

"Stop it. It's too soon for that."

He looked at her like she was crazy. Even his chest was flushed now. His hair was stuck to his forehead and there was sweat on his shoulders. Joan suppressed the urge (not his, she was unfortunately sure) to stand up and run her hands over his chest. "Oh yeah, stop wanting to watch you, that's _real_ easy."

"Do you want me to finish or not?"

"Jesus. Fine, fine!" He took a couple of deep breaths and Joan felt the press of his ability fade a little. It was going to have to be enough. She bent back down and pumped her hand along him a couple of times before going back to working over him with her lips and tongue. He seemed to especially like it when she swirled her tongue over the end of his cock.

Right before Damien came she got a nearly overwhelming urge to lean back and let him spill onto her. She shot him a dark look and was half-tempted to grab the box of tissues from Sarah's desk. But he finished nearly the second after, hot on her tongue. "Joan, fuck, _Joan,_ " he said, finally letting go of the desk to hold her hair back from her face. His hands were shaking with the effort of not pulling her further forward. Hopefully, that meant he was too distracted to notice that she choked a little as she swallowed.

He sank down to the carpet after she'd flopped onto her back, one arm thrown over her eyes. There was cold bottled water in the mini-fridge but she couldn't bring herself to go get it or even tell Damien to get it for her. He laid down next to her and pressed his side up along hers. It made up a little for the room being chilly. With her eyes shut she had no idea how long he let her lie there in silence, but she slowly became aware that he was tapping his fingers against her side.

"Stop," she mumbled, swatting at his hand. She pulled her arm down from her face and tried to glare at him like she hadn't just dozed off.

Damien smirked. "Was I better than him?"

"Yes." Joan hit his shoulder, but he was already laughing, and he swept down to press a rough kiss to her mouth. He bore down on her until she had to turn her head away just to breathe, and then he nipped lightly at her jaw. "Comparing yourself is not attractive," she said.

"Mmm." Damien moved on top of her, kissing her throat, and she ended up with one elbow on the carpet and her other arm wrapped around his shoulders. She shook when he bit down particularly hard on her shoulder. "Are you still wet?"

"How can you possibly have this much energy?"

"Does that mean yes?"

She swallowed. "Yes."

His pupils widened. "Spread your legs."

When she did, he stripped out of his jeans, then settled his knees between her legs and started stroking himself. Watching him made her take a deep breath. "If you're going to do that, use a condom," she warned him.

He rolled his eyes but leaned over to grab his jeans. Of course he'd been carrying condoms in his back pocket. "Do you want to help?" he asked.

She propped herself up with her other elbow. She was breathing hard, and he was watching her breasts move up and down. "No. I think you can take care of that yourself."

"Bossy," he murmured, looking for all the world like the cat that got the cream.

A minute later he was back on top of her. She hesitated, because she didn't really want to have her head flat against the floor, but Damien was rubbing her sides and it was just too much. She swallowed and laid flat, settling her hands on his shoulders. He pushed in too fast. She hissed, digging her nails into his skin. It felt like her entire abdomen was on fire, and Damien didn't stop until he was completely in her. She was stretched and overfull and trying not to whimper. He reached between them and cupped one of her breasts in his hand, pinching her nipple hard enough that she cried out and her back arched.

He had an absolutely maddening smirk on his face. "Attagirl. Are you trembling because I'm just that good or…?"

"I need a minute. That's not - That's not helping," she said.

He was still playing with her nipple, rolling it between two fingers, but he stopped when she had to shut her eyes. He put his hand back down on the carpet and nuzzled at her neck instead. When she sucked in a breath, it smelled like cologne, and Damien canted his hips slightly. He murmured, "Sorry, sorry," when she let out another soft cry, and eased back a little. He gave her a hungry look. "You're so fucking sensitive."

"I only came fifteen minutes ago," she protested.

"Makes it tempting to just start fucking you."

"Don't."

He exhaled. "It's really hard not to."

She glared at him and propped herself up slightly, though her arms felt weak and she didn't think she could hold the position by herself. "Then roll over," she ordered.

It took a minute because he didn't want to slide out of her to let her sit on top of him, but she pushed his hands off her hips and he reluctantly pulled back, resting his shoulders against the waiting room's couch so he could be upright. She was still over sensitive and all her skin was prickling. She put her knees down on either side of him and slowly lowered herself back down onto his cock. When he swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbed.

She looked down. His hand was bunched up in the blouse she'd left on the floor. "You know, you can touch me," she said.

"Is that so?"

She expected him to start playing with her breasts again. Instead he ran his hands along her sides while she slowly started rocking up and down, trying to get herself used to the feeling of him inside her. It didn't smart quite as much as when he'd first pushed in. Damien rubbed small circles into her skin with the heels of his hands and stared at her like he could watch her all day.

That would definitely be too much for her. She leaned forward and kissed the corner of his mouth, pulling one of her hands up to her chest. He was a little gentler than earlier when he started playing with her nipple this time. There was stubble growing on his jaw, so she lifted her head and pressed her forehead to his. It was starting to get difficult to keep her pace slow, and it didn't help that he rocked his hips to follow whenever she tried to lift herself up.

Also, he was smirking again. "You know," he drawled, eyes dark, "you can kiss me."

"You're insufferable."

"But hot," he said, sliding his free hand down to curl over her ass.

She stopped the _yes_ by pressing her mouth to his. He made a satisfied, humming sound, and moved his hand to her other breast. Joan bit his bottom lip when he pinched her nipple. It just made him pull her closer, so her breasts flattened against his chest. She gave up trying to ride him by herself and pulled both his hands to her hips so he could help. He thrust up when she moved down and she groaned against his mouth.

Damien came first and held her hips still for it while she tried to squirm. All she could do for a few moments was tighten her legs against his, but she got him to let her go when she dipped her head to his chest and nipped at his skin. His breathing was deep and ragged but he still wriggled one hand between them to clumsily thumb at her clit. There was no technique to it, just him roughly working her up until she felt like she was going to cry if she didn't finish in the next couple of seconds.

Joan dug her nails into Damien's shoulders when the first shudder hit her. "If you _stop,"_ she warned him. It felt like she was falling apart under his fingers.

"Bossy."

She wasn't going to apologize for the scratch marks.


	3. Chapter 3

It wasn't until the rush had faded and the room started to feel cold that the prospect of the next week started poking at the back of Joan's head. She rubbed the heels of her palms over her closed eyes. "Literally everyone I know is going to flip out when they learn about this. They'll probably hold an intervention."

"If you hadn't just fucked me twice I'd be really insulted. Can't you just not tell them?" He pinched her arm when she didn't look at him.

"God, you're needy," she said, pushing his hand away.

But she sat up so she could look down at him. He stretched, folding his hands together behind his head. It made his chest look really good. She didn't realize she'd said that out loud until he started laughing at her. Rolling her eyes, she pushed herself to her feet and walked over to the mini-fridge behind Sarah's desk. She'd replace the bottles of water later.

Damien sat up when she handed him one. He sipped while she shimmied back into her panties and pulled her blouse back on by itself (that wasn't even him - she was  _ not  _ forcing herself back into a bra at this time of night).

"Seriously. Just don't tell them."

She ran a hand through her hair and sat cross-legged next to him. "If I could do that with telepaths, my life would be a lot easier."

"How do you suck at blocking Chloe - don't look at me like that, c'mon - but half the time, you can tell me to fuck off?"

"It's not half the time," she protested, which made his eyebrows go up. She pressed her water bottle to her throat. "I'm … I'm not good at blocking telepaths. It's too hard to keep your thoughts that focused. At least for me. But a telepath using their power is one-step. It's just reading. Yours is more complicated. You project, and then the other person has to act. When block you, I still know what you're trying to get me to do. Your ability is still affecting me, I'm just able to overcome it. There's no time to overcome someone looking at the text in your brain and reading."

Damien's face was carefully neutral. That was clearly him making an effort. "Really."

"Yes. And I'm not climbing in your lap. I'm tired," she complained.

"I guess nobody's ever told me before. What it's like."

"Oh my God. I've literally tried to have this discussion with you every time you waltz into my office!" She splashed some water on her hand and flicked it in his face, making him sputter. "If you listened to me, you would know this. We  _ could  _ have been working on figuring out how your ability works, giving you some control over it, since it seems to make you miserable, but you never wanted to actually talk."

He half-smiled at her. "Now, see, if I acted like a patient, you probably wouldn't have sucked my brains out through my dick half an hour ago."

She moved to splash him again but he ducked, so she just spill water all over her rug instead. Damn. She was really going to have to call around and see if she could get the carpet shampooed before Sarah came back to work on Monday.

"You should just tell her," he said.

"I'm not telling Sarah you sat on her desk while I gave you a blow job. She'll quit and I'll never replace her."

"What?" He blinked. "I meant you should just tell Chloe. Instead of letting her 'read' it," he said, making air quotes. "Like ripping off a band-aid or something. That sounds like something you would tell me to do, so it's probably a good idea."

"I can't do that! I already - ugh." She put the bottle down and buried her face in her hands. Damien touched her shoulder. It still felt like the office was starting to spin around her. "I already dragged her into too much. I can't make her deal with this, too. And we're still trying..."

"Trying what?"

She bit her tongue.

Damien frowned. "Trying what?" he asked again.

"Trying - Damien, you don't have to know  _ everything." _ She shook for a second, but he didn't stop pressing, and she let her hands fall to her lap. "Trying to get Mark out of the AM," she ground out, refusing to lean into it as he curled an arm around her waist. He was sweaty and smelled distinctly of sex and that cologne and  _ her  _ and she was not going to go soft just because he was pulling her to his side.

"It's messed up that your ex is cool with that, you know."

"If you  _ ever  _ want to have sex with me again, you have  _ got  _ to stop bringing Green up."

He smirked. "Am I bigger than him?"

"Sometimes I honestly don't know why I think you're hot."

"Oh, so you think about me being hot a lot?"

_ "Damien." _

He winked at her. "You realize I like it when you say my name, right?"

She was so in over her head with this.

Damien kept staring at her, but even though she could feel her tongue shaping his name behind her lips, she kept her mouth closed. He sighed and crawled over to his clothes, yanking his t-shirt on first. She did not stare at his ass. Not directly. She may have checked it out from the corner of her eye.

"You know how I make people forget about me?" he asked, standing up to pull his boxers on.

She opened and shut her mouth.

"Not  _ you. _ You really should get an intervention if you think I'm letting you forget this," he said. He crossed his arms over his chest. "People don't remember me if I don't want them to. Like that mugger. Or Green, if you're really so worried about me getting dragged off by a SWAT team."

"What are you getting at?"

"Something stupid," he muttered. He sighed and looked away from her. "You were the one who said I could … what? 'Intervene nonviolently'?"

Joan couldn't breathe.

"I'm not offering to do this because you fucked me."

"I kind of don't care if you're offering this because I fucked you," Joan blurted. She pressed a hand to her mouth when Damien snorted. After a moment, she got to her feet. "Damien, you don't have to do this."

"Maybe I just like showing off."

"This - You don't understand. The AM is dangerous. They experiment on people. If you got caught, they would  _ never let you go.  _ You don't know what I  _ saw  _ before I quit. The things they were doing to people besides Mark! You have to seriously think about this before you make a decision. You can't just walk in there and walk out with my brother."

He shrugged and stepped into his jeans. "That's kind of what I  _ do,  _ though."

"Damien! You can't just waltz in without a plan. You'll be on the camera footage."

"This is why God invented hoodies."

"The guards carry guns."

"I'm good with guns. As good as I am with knives." He tossed her skirt at her. She mechanically slid it over her hips, her mind racing, while he fixed his belt back into place. "Look. I get that you think I have a secret noble core, but this is not going to be the first time I've taken something people didn't want taken."

She put her hands on her hips. "Mark's in a coma. I know you remember this from when you made me tell you about him."

"Hey, you're the brains. You figure that out, you got me. Let's go."

"Oh, all I have to do is solve something I've been trying to solve for - What?"

"We're going back to my place."

"Why are we going back to your place?"

"Uh, because it's closer? And I live next to a pizza joint?" He sighed. "I'll even pay for the pizza if that makes you feel better."

Suddenly she was very, very hungry, and unfortunately she couldn't even blame it on him. Lunch had been a long time ago and she made a point not to have working meals with Green. Shoes, jacket in one hand, then she had her keys in her palm and was stepping into the elevator with Damien. It was big enough for six people, but he leaned up against her back anyway. It would have been easy to push him off, but it was a bit like having a giant comforter thrown over her shoulders.

She sighed at her reflexion in the mirrored elevator wall. Her hair was mussed and there was a reddened bite mark under the strap of her blouse. "I can't believe I'm going to your apartment."

"Pizza. And morning sex," Damien murmured into her hair. "Do you like it when guys wake you up like that?"

The elevator doors opened. She stepped out and pulled her jacket on, ignoring his question. It was easier when she was wired up, when her mind had a thousand other things running through it already. "We can't do this without thinking it through," she told him. "We're only going to get one shot."

"Like I said, you're the brains."


End file.
